How empathy is revolutionizing 21st century health care

This is a time of much political division among people in our society. Can doctors help to heal it?

Unfortunately, when it comes to the world of medicine and health care, there is not a clear-cut standard for kindness or empathy. Are most doctors more humane or less so?

While many complain that their doctors are no longer accessible or compassionate and are too tied into the technology and computerization of our time, at the same time others believe that empathy training in medical schools has turned out more caring practitioners.

I believe both realities are true. At NYU I teach a course in medical journalism and have been very impressed with the sensitivity and thoughtfulness of my current and recent students.

A 2022 review on the role of teaching empathy to medical students published in The Clinical Teacher reported that “there is growing evidence for educational initiatives that better evoke students’ affective emotional responses.” These include the use of clinical educators for just this purpose. 

At NYU Langone Health, the Center for Empathy in Medicine “develops and implements innovative curriculum for enhancing and supporting empathy throughout our healthcare system.” This is a crucial initiative. It focuses on empathy skills and curriculum for faculty leaders, and “advancing our understanding of empathy as a core value and skill within health professions education and training.” 

I am all for emphasizing diversity, equity and inclusion in our medical schools. At the same time, I believe treating others as equals and with respect goes much deeper, beginning in early childhood, and bias and prejudice are not easily correctible.

I think what we need most are role models, both current and historical.

Throughout my career, I have been inspired by the famed 20th century doctor/poet William Carlos Williams. On patient connection he wrote in his autobiography, “I lost myself in the very properties of their minds: For the moment at least I actually became them, whoever they should be.”

“The patient himself would shape up into something that called for attention; his peculiarities, her reticences or candors. And though I might be attracted or repelled, the professional attitude which every physician must call on would steady me, dictate the terms on which I was to proceed,” Williams added.  

Like Williams, doctors today who are practicing the art of medicine must listen deeply and compassionately to their patients. This can be taught, though it is aided by support from individuals with already high empathy quotients. 

As a paper in the British Journal of General Practice in 2018 concluded, “Patient-centred care is seen as an antidote to abstract, technical medicine.“

“The doctor’s ability to develop an understanding and take into consideration what is important to the patient (that is, their beliefs, hopes, desires, and possibilities) seems to be an essential element to the provision of this type of care,” it adds. 

In the old days, our paper patient charts were put together in a narrative form that made them easier to follow, a page-by-page cohesive reveal of the inner aspects of a patient’s life. Nowadays, doctors don’t write notes in patient charts and we don’t really talk to each other as often. This makes the need for empathy training even greater and puts more pressure on medical school admissions officers to choose applicants who appear more empathic. 

As Doc Williams once wrote eloquently, “It is … the peace of mind that comes from adopting the patient’s condition as one’s own … which really gives us our peace.”

Marc Siegel, M.D., is a professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Health. He is a Fox News medical correspondent and author of the new book, “COVID; The Politics of Fear and the Power of Science.